SNES Game Review: NBA Jam and NBA Jam: Tournament Edition

 That's right I am going to post about 2 games at one time here.  The reason? NBA Jam Tournament Edition has a lot of the same features, just more players and a tournament style.  This was a dual of games that made it a cult following even today and a top basketball game at its time and one that people still play on retro games today.  What does this game do well? Is there anything it doesn't do well? ALl that and more (and an extension as to what NBA Jam: Tournament Edition does) coming up below!

Positives:

1. NBA and NBPA licenses: Yep, essentially what Madden couldn't do for years NBA Jam did instantly with having the NBA license and the NBPA license.  Meaning real teams, real players and their likeness and names.  It was fantastic to see overall that this game started with all the realism in teams and players.

2. Arcade style works: A lot of people might scoff at arcade-style games being on different platforms but this game works immensely for being arcade-style and fun.  The arcade style makes it fun overall to play and it makes it also chill but also competitive.  

3. Trolling: This is a great game to troll your friend with but also the game itself has a history of trolling a team.  That is because the producer of the game was/is a Pistons fan, and the 90's were peak rivalry of Bulls/Pistons.  The producer then decided to put something in the game code that if you are the Bulls you will miss every shot at the end of the games against the Pistons.  15/10 for the trolling indeed.

4. The announcer: I just love this guy, just saying stuff like "Heating up! He's on Fire!" and just having a lot of fun with it.  This is something that may seem minor but it is a plus that the announcer is minimal but also really good with the game.

5. Graphics: Graphics in both games are just really, really good and the sprites are great.  The movements of the players are just fantastic as well so all in all a really good game. 

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition

The only main differences on this is just the tournament style, some new players and just different screen graphics overall on the main menus.  This was something that isn't made major important but it is still good fun overall because the game is so well made by Midway and most fans of NBA Jam will love NBA Jam: Tournament edition.  The announcer is still amazing, still arcade style and has the NBA and NBPA licenses so you are great overall with it.

Negatives:

To me, there are none.  I could be wrong but I really couldn't find one negative with this game at all and that is something I enjoyed overall.  This was just a well made game.

Overall rating/Rank

This game is very well made by Midway and NBA Jam: Tournament Edition is well made as well.  Neither game has any major flaws and with all the positives, both games rate very highly.  It's no surprise they are right next to each other in the all-time rankings.  Both games are 10/10 in my opinion, and both are highly ranked the order, in 22nd and 23rd overall on the SNES rankings list I have done.

SNES Game Review: Aladdin

 There were a lot of movie titles that became games in the 1990's.  The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Aladdin are among those.  Aladdin is a movie in the 90's but also a game from Capcom, who seemed to hit on every game they touched for the SNES for the most part.  A lot of this game will be kind of a comparison to The Lion King, which I reviewed a long time ago on this blog (Link is below.)  What do I think Aladdin did well? What did I think it needed more of? All that and more below!

Positives:

1. Graphics: Capcom with Disney hit it out of the park with this and they had to be proud of themselves for this.  A game with the caliber of the SNES to look so good graphically was a major step for them and it was a really cool thing to see the levels so vivid, so good overall.

2. Music: Capcom, Disney, Nintendo.  Music is always the best.  I don't think I need to go further.  But I will anyway :) The music is fantastic in this game, and all the Aladdin music that you love from the movie is brilliant in the game.

3. Not as difficult as The Lion King: Yes this is better in difficulty than the Lion King.  It is more manageable and a lot easier to deal with overall.  The levels themselves I am about to elude on are a major reason for this not being as difficult.

4. The Levels: Absolutely splendid and not as death riddled as The Lion King.  That is a major step better.  The levels themselves are exquisite but they are still somewhat challenging without breaking a controller to have to do everything and dying every single second.  They also are more forgiving in you don't have to be absolutely perfect to do everything on a level.

5. Password system: For the SNES a ton of games that don't have save batteries with them are put well with a password system.  For Aladdin it is pretty simple with some icons rather than a long password you have to put on a pad to remember.  

Negatives:

1. Jewels: Yeah this is the major negative here.  I don't really know the purpose of them but also I don't quite know the reason for them in this game? Also some seem very much too difficult to get so I don't understand quite why the jewels are in the game anyway.  

Overall Rating/Rank:

I thought Aladdin was done very well for the Super Nintendo and that Capcom can be very proud of themselves.  Overall I thought the levels were done very well, obviously the music is fantastic.  The levels themselves are very well done and not as difficult as The Lion King.  Overall I think this game is an 8.7 out of 10.  I would rate it probably 44th on the SNES all-time ranking. 

https://mywideworldofblogging.blogspot.com/2019/06/snes-game-review-lion-king.html 

SNES Game Review: John Madden Football

 John Madden Football, that name is noted to history.  His time coaching, the great players, quarterbacks, games, and.. a video game? Yep at the time, he self-admitted he didn't know what a video game was but little did he know how strong that brand was going to be.. on other systems besides the Super Nintendo.  Yeah this game kicked off the Madden franchise on Super Nintendo as well, and went through until Madden NFL 98.  What did John Madden Football do well? What doesn't it do well? All that and more below.

Positive:

1. Graphics: The field and the jersey colors are actually quite good overall.  EA did well with this aspect of the game to make those actually good.

2. You get the sense of the game: Yes I am again grasping at straws when I say this and luckily I don't have to for the Madden on SNES series anymore.  Yes you get a grasp of the game early on at least what it will be like for the SNES.

Negatives:

1. Choppy frame rate: This game is so choppy and it shows badly right away.  Every play is choppy and it is such a struggle overall to deal with. 

2. Slow: Yep this game is slow and choppy, and yes that is easily not a good combo for any game but definitely not a good combo for a Super Nintendo game.

3. No NFL/NFLPA license: Yeah this doesn't help the cause to the just lackluster game.  No NFL or NFLPA license mean no players, no official names, no anything really that resembles having a good quality game here. If you want quality even without both, look at the Genesis version of this game and it will be noted why that game sold so well.

Overall rating/Rank:

I can't give the SNES version of John Madden Football higher than a 4 out of 10.  The slow, choppy frame rate and speed to the game make it just bad.  Yes they did okay with the graphics but you got a sense early on this was what Madden on SNES was going to be, just a mess.  Look to the Genesis for these games and that is what I will say about it.  Overall, 490th is what I will rate John Madden Football

SNES Game Review: Sim City

 Sim City is a Super Nintendo game that came out in 1991 (or 1992 if you were in Europe) that kind of makes it as it sounds, about a city, simulation and building.  That may sound boring to some but it did do well with the public overall.  What do I think of this game? How did it fare overall? All that and more below.

Positives:

1. Music: If you wanted a simulation city building game, the music itself is very calming and very chill, making it a chill atmosphere and a chill game overall which is really nice.

2. A good simulation: Overall, all the things you want to use in a city simulation/building is there.  Buildings, resources like fire/police departments, taxes, residential areas, and for a larger city things like airports and stadiums are also incorporated.  It is a good thing to have the basics and know-how to manage it.

3. Appropriate city structure: I think the way Sim City went about with city building was in-depth and good.  The tax system, anything happening with it (IE: disasters, regular maintenance, etc) and building power, transit roads and railroads are all important city functions so that is all incorporated here.  Running ports as well if you are in a coastline or lakeside town/city.  So therefore it is major for them to have. This game does that and does it well I think.

4. Extras: I love that you are given a Mario Statue at a certain point, that Bowser can rampage the city and you can just destroy the city after all the work of building it.  It's a game that doesn't need to end if you don't want and I like that.

5. Scenarios: This is a cool one.  You can go in with different scenarios of the past and try to work on the city and bringing them back up (I believe one notable one was in 1906 and building back a city.) And for a city building game, cool scenario factors like this are a good add on.

Negatives:

1. Limitation: Due to what the game is about, there isn't much besides that with exploration of what to do with the city building.  Yes you can acquire as much needs as possible to do well with the city building but there just is limitations to what you can do to make this more fun (IE: See Roller coaster Tycoon and the vast amount you can do there compared to this.) 

2. Not a great representation of city building: Yeah this widespread massive city only seems to happy in coastal areas or if you live in Texas these days in the USA.  It is probably more suited as a European game to city build in different locales but overall, it's not very accurate that anyplace just builds to 500k citizens in a matter of years.  

Overall Rating/Rank

With the positives and Negatives, I would rate Sim City a 8 out of 10. It's negatives are just a result of the game they were going for, but I think the city building/progression is the major one downside.  I do think they provide an accurate representation of the city layout/structure with tax code, referencing to services and more over the course of time. In terms of an overall rank, I'd have to still give this a top 50 rank because the game was so note-worthy for so long.  I'd say among SNES games, I'd rank it 47th.

SNES Game Review: John Madden Football 93

 John Madden Football 93 is the second game of the Madden legacy to hit the shelves on the SNES.  Side note to all of this, if you play these games on the Genesis, they look a lot better than those on the Super Nintendo.  I think if EA went with Blue Sky for the SNES as they did for the Genesis, it would be a lot better done. Anyway, what does EA do well here for the SNES version of the game? What does it lack? Also note, this will be mainly in comparison to John Madden Football, a game I will review tomorrow.

Positives:

1. Improved graphics: You can tell I am going to be searching a bit but the graphics are improved from John Madden Football.  Overall the graphics department did a much better job than the original game and if only they could have set the standard going forward, this might have been a good SNES series.

2. Started to get the feel of it: You started to gain some picture to what Madden was going to be on SNES, which helped paint a picture more than anything.  Like I said they were much better on the Genesis but since this is a SNES review, oofda. 

Negatives:

1. Frame rate: Yeah this is so choppy on the SNES version of this game. You almost immediately as you play get the feeling of a choppy game and it doesn't help at all going forward with anything.  The Genesis version is so much more smooth than the Super Nintendo.

2. No NFL or NFLPA licenses: Yep, you read that right.  Neither the NFL nor NFLPA had the licenses for this game, and you are just stuck with generic, albeit very much the same, looks for teams like Dallas, Buffalo, etc.  I believe they named New York teams as New Jersey if I recall right but I would have to double check that.  

3. Punting/Kicking camera: It is a sudden movement and almost seemingly glitchy movement from punting side to receiving side.  No transition, no anything so it makes it really really rough to stomach why EA was not very good with this. 

4. They badly needed a new developer: Make it like Blue Sky for the Genesis, who actually made this version honestly very much decent and if I rated the Genesis version it would rate highly for this game.  However, EA went it alone on the SNES version and it.. really doesn't work here at all.

5. Slow: That's right the game on the SNES is slow.  Just painfully slow.  Again in comparison to the Genesis version of this game, it is just massively slow and a massive letdown to be honest.  I wish that wasn't the case and I wish EA had the foresight of putting Blue Sky on for the SNES version of this game as well.

Overall Rating/Rank

Yes I have been critical of this game for the SNES, but I have been critical of Madden on the SNES.  That is because EA had so much at their disposal to make a game good for themselves but didn't.  Really their best series was the NHL series,  and it shows badly.  However for the SNES with Madden I can't get it more than 4 out of 10 and an overall rank of 430th out of the SNES games.

SNES Game Review: Madden NFL 94

 Madden NFL 94 is another Madden game that was on the Super Nintendo for the 1993 season.  However much like John Madden Football 93 and that games predecessor, John Madden Football, it has a lot of flaws.  As you can already tell I have gone through most of the sports gaming library on the SNES by now so I can tell you a lot of the in's and outs of these games, but nearly all the SNES games on Madden I cannot recommend.  Alas, here si what they did well and not well.

Positive:

1. More fluid gameplay: The gameplay is more fluid than its predecessors and less choppy which are good things for the franchise as it moved forward in the Super Nintendo era.  

2. Music: Honestly pretty good pre-FOX days of having that music instituted in the gameplay as well.  I quite enjoyed the menu music and the presenting music for the game. 

3. NFL License: So all the teams are represented and not just random names without the Bills, Cowboys, 49ers, Packers, etc.  So they did well to advance from generic terms to actual names.

Negatives:

1. NFLPA License: Unless you are an arcade game tbh you will not be given this reprieve of not having the NFL license on the game.  This si something Madden sorely lacked and thankfully got good with Madden NFL 95.  Had it gone on longer, this franchise might have been history.

2. Graphics: Yeah they are honestly choppy.  Blurry is a good word too but they just in all honesty are not very good overall.

3. Season: It is just a hodgepodge.  It isn't accurate to the 1993 season (See what Tecmo Super Bowl was) and overall just makes it a lousy way of going about with the game. 

Overall Rating/Rank:

This game is not a real good rendition of what Madden should have been and really just only modestly improved from the first two versions of this game.  I felt really let down playing Madden NFL 94 and thankfully Madden 95 was better.  As a rating, 5 out of 10 works, around 390th for a rank overall. 

SNES/PS1 Game Review: Madden NFL 97

 Madden NFL 97 was the first of the Madden games to make the switch from SNES to PS1 but also had a game for the SNES, with Madden 98 following in its footsteps.  They had planned to make a Madden NFL 96 PS1 game, however that was scrubbed as it was really bad in testing.  This was the first full game on the PS1 for the Madden series, and I will talk about the SNES version and the PS1 version but also rate them both at the end!

SNES Version

Positives:

1. Transactions: Finally this comes for the forefront.  This took way too late to be honest in the SNES era but better late than never I guess.  Now you can sign, trade, release players all you want there and it is something that was needed before this but glad to have seen it towards the end of the SNES era.

2. Improved offense: No longer is the line of scrimmage just a quagmire and full of people every time you throw the ball.  The improved engine in the game by Tiburon makes for offense to be better and overall just more realistic.

3. Better graphics: Yes this is thanks to Tiburon as well but the graphics are better and overall with better fluidity through the game process.

Negatives:

1. Easy AI: Yeah this is a running joke tbh.  It is way too easy to win on this game even on high difficulty.  It's unbelievably easy and that is something that I find a bit baffling for a game of Madden's stature.

2. Running Game: It's still wonky but something that is baffling after doing well for a couple games with the running game.  It's a bit wonky in this one but something that makes it a downgrade from the previous games.

PS1 Version

Positives: 

1. Smooth transition: The introduction into the 32-bit reality world of the PS1 actually did well after the massively failed near release of Madden 96 on PS1.  That led to the Madden 97 Game being the top selling game of 1996 on the PS1.  Easily put, if they put Madden 96 out there with how bad it was in testing, then this game and series is easily not good going forward. 

2. Defense: I felt finally in control of a defensive strategy for once.  Madden's NFL Series on SNES were good for defense but it really wasn't hard due to the difficulty being easy even on the hardest modes.  With this I felt I had to adjust when the other offense was doing well.

3. Realism: It felt more real.  The stadiums were mostly accurate for the time, the stats are really good, good transactions menu as well.  That includes the presentation of James Brown in a pre-game sort of booth previewing the week and John Madden and Pat Summerall previewing something about the game.  Everything was really good overall in terms of realism from just the next gen style.

Negatives:

1. Player sprites: This annoys me even with Madden NFL 98, and that is that EA Sports didn't go with 3D football player models until the Madden 99 game.  It still almost is just a better SNES version of these players.  I was more or less annoyed because a LOT of other games, whether sports or RPG's had 3D models of characters even when they started so it wouldn't have been hard.

2. Offense: Yeah it is a major struggle to pass the ball and there are a few plays that works but overall you learn really quick the plays for passing that work and have to essentially cheese those.  For running it is the same way, only really a few plays will work and you know those as well to cheese it.

3. Difficulty: Again, even on the highest difficulty it is still super easy to win games.  It's honestly a joke that the SNES and PS1 games are easy to win.

Overall Rating/Rank:

For the PS1, you got some of the ways forward with this game that they were trying to accomplish and it is not hard to state the impact the game being so well selling did for the franchises future, even when lined up against NFL Gameday and later on the ESPN 2K series.  However, this honestly is just an above average game with some good qualities on the PS1, for a rating of 6.5 out of 10.

For the SNES, it's probably the 2nd best of the Madden games (Madden 98 on the SNES was essentially the same game and if I rate it/play it on SNES, it would be one below Madden 97 to be honest) but it still has a lot of flaws overall for this series.  I can't rate it higher than Madden NFL 95, and I would say it's probably around 260th of the games on the SNES.